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Qwen

Alibaba Qwen · 20 tracked releases · February 4, 2024 – September 18, 2026

At a glance

Releases tracked20
First trackedFebruary 4, 2024 — Qwen1.5-72B
LatestSeptember 18, 2026 — Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash
Span957 days
Median gap25 days between releases
Weights14 of 20 open
Record quality8 of 20 verified · how this is judged

Release cadence

One tile per tracked release, placed in the month it shipped, so the pauses in this line are the pauses in the data. Years with nothing tracked keep their row.

  1. 2024
    1. Qwen1.5-72B, Alibaba Qwen, February 4, 2024
    2. Qwen2-72B, Alibaba Qwen, June 7, 2024
    3. Qwen2.5-72B, Alibaba Qwen, September 19, 2024
    3
  2. 2025
    1. QwQ-32B, Alibaba Qwen, March 6, 2025
    2. Qwen3-235B-A22B, Alibaba Qwen, April 29, 2025Qwen3-30B-A3B, Alibaba Qwen, April 29, 2025
    3. Qwen3-Coder-480B-A35B-Instruct, Alibaba Qwen, July 22, 2025
    4
  3. 2026
    1. Qwen3-Max-Thinking, Alibaba Qwen, January 23, 2026
    2. Qwen3-Coder-Next, Alibaba Qwen, February 2, 2026Qwen3.5-397B-A17B, Alibaba Qwen, February 14, 2026
    3. Qwen3.6-Plus, Alibaba Qwen, April 2, 2026Qwen3.6-35B-A3B, Alibaba Qwen, April 15, 2026Qwen3.6-27B, Alibaba Qwen, April 21, 2026
    4. Qwen3.7-Max, Alibaba Qwen, May 16, 2026Qwen3.7-Plus, Alibaba Qwen, May 21, 2026
    5. Qwen3.8-Max, Alibaba Qwen, August 3, 2026Qwen3.8-Flash-Next, Alibaba Qwen, August 3, 2026Qwen3.8-27B, Alibaba Qwen, August 5, 2026Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B, Alibaba Qwen, August 8, 2026
    6. Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash, Alibaba Qwen, September 18, 2026
    13

Lineage

Ordered by announcement date, and spaced by the gap between releases, so a quiet year looks like one. Lineage is not inferred from version numbers — labs do not number consistently, so the dates decide the order.

  1. Qwen1.5-72BText in and out

  2. +124 days

    Qwen2-72BText in and out

    codingmultilingual

    from Qwen1.5-72B Context window 33K → 131KParameters 72B → 73Bfirst evidenced: coding, multilingual

  3. +104 days

    Qwen2.5-72B

    from Qwen2-72B Parameters 73B → 72BLicence Tongyi Qianwen License Agreement → Qwen License Agreement

  4. +168 days

    QwQ-32BText in and out

    reasoning

  5. +54 days

    2 released the same day

    Qwen3-235B-A22BText in and out

    from Qwen2.5-72B Parameters 72B → 235BLicence Qwen License Agreement → Apache-2.0

    Qwen3-30B-A3BText in and out

    from Qwen2.5-72B Parameters 72B → 30BLicence Qwen License Agreement → Apache-2.0

  6. +84 days

    Qwen3-Coder-480B-A35B-InstructText in and out

    agentic

  7. +185 days

    Qwen3-Max-ThinkingText in and out

  8. +10 days

    Qwen3-Coder-NextText in and out

  9. +12 days

    Qwen3.5-397B-A17BText in and out

    from Qwen3-235B-A22B Context window 131K → 262KParameters 235B → 397B

  10. +47 days

    Qwen3.6-PlusText in and out

  11. +13 days

    Qwen3.6-35B-A3BText in and out

    from Qwen3-30B-A3B Parameters 30B → 35Bfirst evidenced: agentic, coding

  12. +6 days

    Qwen3.6-27BText in and out

    from Qwen3-30B-A3B Parameters 30B → 27Bfirst evidenced: agentic, coding

  13. +25 days

    Qwen3.7-MaxText in and out

  14. +5 days

    Qwen3.7-PlusText in and out

  15. +74 days

    2 released the same day

    Qwen3.8-MaxText in and out

    from Qwen3.7-Max first evidenced: reasoning

    Qwen3.8-Flash-NextText in and outImage input

  16. +2 days

    Qwen3.8-27BText in and outImage input

    from Qwen3.6-27B first evidenced: image in

  17. +3 days

    Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B

    from Qwen3.5-397B-A17B Context window 262K → 256KParameters 397B → 2.4TLicence Apache-2.0 → qwen3.8-max

  18. +41 days

    Qwen3.8-Omni-FlashText in and out

Context window over time

Only releases with a disclosed context window appear — 9 of 20 are not shown.

Qwen1.5-72B · 2024 33K tokens
Qwen2-72B · 2024 131K tokens
Qwen2.5-72B · 2024 131K tokens
Qwen3-235B-A22B · 2025 131K tokens
Qwen3-30B-A3B · 2025 131K tokens
Qwen3-Coder-480B-A35B-Instruct · 2025 256K tokens
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B · 2026 262K tokens
Qwen3.6-Plus · 2026 1M tokens
Qwen3.8-Max · 2026 256K tokens
Qwen3.8-27B · 2026 256K tokens
Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B · 2026 256K tokens

What changed

Generation to generation, from evidenced values only. A field is compared only where both releases record it — otherwise it is called out as not comparable, so a research gap never reads as a change the lab made.

Qwen1.5-72B → Qwen2-72B 124 days

Context window
33K → 131K
Parameters
72B → 73B
Capabilities first evidenced
+ coding + multilingual

Not comparable here: licence (not disclosed for both releases).

Qwen2-72B → Qwen2.5-72B 104 days

Parameters
73B → 72B
Licence
Tongyi Qianwen License Agreement → Qwen License Agreement

Not comparable here: capabilities and modalities (not researched on both releases).

Qwen2.5-72B → Qwen3-235B-A22B 222 days

Parameters
72B → 235B
Licence
Qwen License Agreement → Apache-2.0

Not comparable here: capabilities and modalities (not researched on both releases).

Qwen2.5-72B → Qwen3-30B-A3B 222 days

Parameters
72B → 30B
Licence
Qwen License Agreement → Apache-2.0

Not comparable here: capabilities and modalities (not researched on both releases).

Qwen3-235B-A22B → Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 291 days

Context window
131K → 262K
Parameters
235B → 397B

Qwen3-30B-A3B → Qwen3.6-35B-A3B 351 days

Parameters
30B → 35B
Capabilities first evidenced
+ agentic + coding

Not comparable here: context window (not researched on both releases).

Qwen3-30B-A3B → Qwen3.6-27B 357 days

Parameters
30B → 27B
Capabilities first evidenced
+ agentic + coding

Not comparable here: context window (not researched on both releases).

Qwen3.6-Plus → Qwen3.7-Plus 49 days

No change in any field both releases record.

Not comparable here: context window (not disclosed for both releases); parameters (not disclosed for both releases).

Qwen3.7-Max → Qwen3.8-Max 79 days

Capabilities first evidenced
+ reasoning

Not comparable here: context window (not disclosed for both releases); parameters (not disclosed for both releases).

Qwen3.6-27B → Qwen3.8-27B 106 days

Modalities first evidenced
+ image in

Not comparable here: context window (not researched on both releases).

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B → Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B 175 days

Context window
262K → 256K
Parameters
397B → 2.4T
Licence
Apache-2.0 → qwen3.8-max

Not comparable here: capabilities and modalities (not researched on both releases).

Compare the two most recent side by side →
All releases from Alibaba Qwen →